National Nutrition Agency Denies Free Nutritious Meal Programme Affects Education Budget
The Head of the National Nutrition Agency (BGN), Sudaryono, has denied that the Free Nutritious Meal (MBG) programme is interfering with the education budget allocation. He explained that issues such as damaged school buildings and the welfare of honorary teachers existed long before the MBG was launched.
According to Sudaryono, the condition of damaged schools is not an impact of the MBG implementation. He noted that several damaged school buildings were already in disrepair prior to the programme’s inception. “Before there was MBG, were those schools broken or full of holes? It wasn’t because of the programme, even though Mr Prabowo has become President and there is now MBG. The schools didn’t suddenly become damaged,” Sudaryono stated at the BGN Office in Central Jakarta on Friday, 31 July 2026.
“You should ask where the funds were previously. For those damaged schools, the money that is now for MBG should have been used for them in the past; if there were no MBG, all schools should have been in good condition,” he added.
Sudary_ono further noted that the government plans to repair 16,000 schools this year, though this number is likely to increase to 90,000 schools. Additionally, the government aims to gradually extend these repairs to approximately 300,000 to 400,000 schools.
Furthermore, Sudaryono denied that the presence of the MBG programme has caused the salaries of honorary teachers to decrease. He maintained that low wages for honorary teachers were a pre-existing issue. “The salaries of honorary teachers were not low because of MBG; it was already like that before MBG existed,” he said.
He mentioned that President Prabowo Subianto has even increased allowances for honorary or non-ASN teachers to up to Rp2 million, despite the implementation of the MBG. “The President has ensured it reaches up to Rp2 million. It wasn’t like that before. Now, they claim funds are being cut for MBG, but we are fixing everything,” Sudaryono concluded.